A Nine-Figure Exit at 33 and the Emotional Cost No One Talks About with Matt Wright

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation, JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down a nine-figure exit at$33 and the emotional cost no one talks about. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Matt Wright and EO Fire Studios. Matt is an entrepreneur and investor focused on building, scaling, and backing high-quality businesses across various industries and markets. And today we're going to talk about after the exit, the post-success void, life and identity, winning isn't enough, and oh, so much more.

0:34John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Matt and our sponsors. Fire Nation, stop putting off launching your website or business. Hostinger makes it incredibly simple and affordable to get online with everything you need to succeed all in one place. Visit hostinger.com slash onfire. Use code ONFIRE for 20 % off. Your next chapter starts today. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:11John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Matt say what's up to fire nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with so look I think in my case in particular probably the win you know the win feels like nothing you imagine it would and I don't sort of say it lightly either I mean for me personally the engine that I guess kept me going for six years was built around a feeling that I think I projected onto a destination and that destination didn't actually exist in the way that I constructed it in my head so then what happens at the exit the deal closes the number lands it's quiet and if you haven't prepared for that silence it will genuinely knock you sideways so I think most founders generally won't say that out loud because it sounds ungrateful.

2:18But it isn't, you know, it's the most honest thing I know about success. So I would be telling people to prepare for the silence because that's, you know, nobody ever warned me about that. And it's one of the things I take away the most.

2:30John Lee Dumas:Yeah, Matt, you and I actually talked about this offline and I'll kind of share something a little bit as well as that, you know, for me, I spent four years in the army. I did 13 months in Iraq. Like I literally had a countdown on my calendar. Like I know the day that I get out of the military and I'm no longer an officer in the army. It's going to be the happiest day of my life because I have all these responsibilities. I'm up so early. I'm working so hard and so late. And then it happened in like a week later, I was the most depressed I've ever been because like I didn't know how to deal with the void.

3:02John Lee Dumas:I didn't know how to deal with the silence. I didn't know how to deal with no longer being irrelevant for no longer having a reason to wake up in the morning. That sounds dramatic, but it's a reality. And I want to talk about that post success void with you, Matt, because a lot of founders, they expect fulfillment. They expect it to be the best day, week, month, year of their life after they have this major exit. I mean, you had a nine figure exit, 33 years old. I mean, why aren't you jumping on a jet and going? I don't know. You know, this is what people are thinking. So you instead feel lost.

3:33John Lee Dumas:Why does this happen to us? Why does this happen to entrepreneurs who are at the pinnacle of their success with these exits? You go from 100 miles an hour and, you know, just like you said in the army as well, you know, I think once you once you commit to that, you probably didn't think about it as much. But the minute you committed to the exit, the date being real, that countdown and that focus on the destination, that's it begins, you know, and then you amp it up even more. And then you wake up the next day. The urgency's disappeared literally overnight. um look there is there is relief to some degree but you know after 80 hours a week up to 100 hours at times every decision matters every decision carries weight the pressure finally goes but you know i think what what i didn't understand is that the urgency wasn't stress it was actually structure it was part of who i was it was the thing that told me every morning who I was why I was getting up and in the morning after the deal closed I woke up the world's the same as it always you know will be but something fundamentally had shift shifted inside me which exactly what you just said the daily purpose was gone it's like the team I'd built over six years you know particularly for me I attribute a lot of my success to the the culture we had within our organization and the people in the organization so that team that i've built over six years they're no longer my team the problem i've been solving every single day or problems um no longer needed me to solve it um and nobody tells you about it about the grief of that you know because from the outside it just looks like winning and it is winning but i think grief and winning can exist at the exact same time in the exact same moment.

5:31And that's the bit that probably took me a little bit longer to accept.

5:34John Lee Dumas:It's such a powerful topic because, you know, for you, it was, you were running a team, like you mattered, like you were making big decisions. You were adding real value to the world. You were creating amazing solutions to real problems. And, you know, for me, like I didn't have the same kind of financial windfall that you did. You know, mine was different, but you know, the results were so similar because, you know, I was leading 16 soldiers in war. I was making decisions that were life and death on a daily basis for 13 months when I was deployed to Iraq. Like I was like playing the ultimate game of life and death in war, like as an officer in the U S army.

6:12And it was crazy.

6:14John Lee Dumas:So when all that was taken away from me, you know, and by the way, I had plenty of money in the bank. I had like, like a couple hundred thousand dollars as a 26 year old with no debt, you know, which isn't a nine figure exit, but it's like almost infinite relative. It's almost like infinite money to like a single guy with no debt. I was like, I could do anything I want pretty much, you know, and like, and the depression was suffocating. So I want to talk about impact on life and identity. So how does success affect your personal life, your relationships and how you actually see yourself? personally the answer is more than i'd like to admit um i mean i went to i moved to australia at 20 years old from the uk originally i was alone i spent years in the automotive industry before starting cars for us i knew my market or the market i had the experience um but in my case you know i was young and i was in a traditional some would say archaic industry at 27 28 years old just starting out so youth means that you have to work twice as hard to be received at the same value and that's something I really felt um particularly at the start 27 28 years old like clearly and consistently every single day and it it drove me in a way that I didn't fully understand until probably until after the exit like a lot of what fueled the relentlessness and that's a word I use a lot for relentlessness was was proven something not just to the industry but to myself and you know when the deal was done the proof was you know undeniable you know I just sold you know an automotive group nine figures to Toyota of all people that fuel just disappeared and I hadn't built anything to replace it with so then personally you know well personally when you're in build mode everything else gets managed around the work you know relationships your health your presence you just you just ration them but and you'll always tell yourself it's temporary or you'll show up differently when the deal's done and and then the deal's done and the habits you've built around unavailability they don't disappear so i had to have some pretty honest conversations in that period about what i'd actually been like to be around um and they were hard and you know not because the people I guess I was having them with, you know, were hurting my feelings or anything like that, probably because they were true.

8:37So that's, that's what really hit me the hardest, I would say.

8:42John Lee Dumas:I want to talk about why winning isn't enough because I want to get real. Why doesn't money or winning solve deeper emotional side of fulfillment? Because a lot of people are like, money would just solve all of my problems. I wouldn't have to worry about this or that. Talk about that. why? Yeah. And look, I think this is exactly where we, you know, when we were comparing our own stories before, I want to put a different spin on it. I want to say that money does solve problems, but that's all that it does. The questions about identity, you know, purpose, whether your life means something, money has no answer for any of that.

9:21And so I think that the reason so many founders are blindsided in the way that I was by this is that during the build, the money's feedback you know but every dollar of revenue is simply evidence for what for what you're doing it tells you that what you're doing every day the thing that you're building is working but after the exit it stops being feedback and it just sits there um so without the feedback loop without the daily evidence that you're moving and building and mattering you know you have to find another source of that feeling and most of us included myself haven't done that work but and haven't needed to do that work either and so the deeper thing i've realized is that is that achievement is a very efficient way to avoid difficult internal questions you're so busy building you know the big questions who am i who am i really what do i actually want what would i do if success wasn't the answer they just simply never get asked so the exit is the first moment in years where i guess you can't outrun them so the work for me now is learning to you know just sit with those questions without immediately trying to solve them, which is genuinely the hardest thing I've ever done.

10:30I'm a mover. I'm a, I'm a fixer. So it kills me not being able to outrun or solve a problem, you know?

10:36John Lee Dumas:Yeah. I do love how you reframe that as well, because the reality is this when a lot of people say, John, like money can't buy happiness, like blah, blah, blah. I say, well, have you ever written a massive six or seven figure check for an organization of philanthropy, you know, a charity that you truly believe in? Because I have, and that brought me joy and that brought me a lot of happiness. And I've done that multiple times now. I've built schools in Guatemala and Laos. You know, I dedicated our entire gym facility here and the community that I live in Palmas Del Mar. I mean, like you're able to do amazing things.

11:12John Lee Dumas:So like for people to try to like make out money as being like the root of all evil, like, well, how are you using it? because like you can go out there and make a lot of money and do a lot, a lot of good in this world if you so choose. So we're gonna be talking about rebuilding without business, ambition versus presence and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Trying to get a traditional bank loan for your business, it's slow, it's complicated, and it rarely moves at the speed you need. With tighter lending standards and more hoops than ever, you're often left waiting when you need capital now.

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14:21John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Matt, we're back. let's talk about rebuilding without the business because when the company's gone what does it actually look like to rebuild your life deliberately and slowly which touching on sort of what i was saying before is uncomfortable for anyone wired the way i am um and probably you know that's that's the same for a lot of founders i would say the first thing i went back to is the basics that predate starting the business or predate the business so the morning the body the physical discipline you know so whether that's training movement routine not because those things answered identity questions because they don't but because that because they're mine that like they belong to me they don't belong to the business and when you've just handed a big part of yourself over completely i guess for lack of a better word you need anchors that are still yours so from there it's about getting honest with yourself in a way the build doesn't allow for so what do i actually value you know not not what made the business successful but what makes me feel alive what are the moments where i felt most like myself are any of those present in how i'm living right now and then for me the answer to you know the last question was not enough you know i've been so focused on the output for so long that the inputs that actually fill you the real connection the genuine rest the things that have nothing to do with productivity had been rationed down to almost nothing so rebuilding is putting those back not as rewards for finishing the work but really as non-negotiables you know the same way i treated the morning routine during the build i now treat presence you know to be fair i i protect it you know i don't know i will not negotiate it away anymore.

16:20John Lee Dumas:So I want to talk about ambition versus presence because there are founders that are listening right now. In fact, most they're still in the grind. So how should they think about balancing ambition with being present? Absolutely. Without question, do not wait until the exit to ask, to ask the question. That's, that's, that's the lesson I've learned. I look back on years where the people closest to me deserved more than what or deserved more from me than what i gave them and it's not because i didn't care but because i had one setting and that setting was business and and success or succeeding in that business so here's what i'd actually say to someone um in you know that's grinding right now that's you know whether they're trying to get to an exit or not but you know a founder or a business owner whoever they are ambition and presence they're not opposites they feel like opposites when you haven't been intentional about both of them but you can work with everything you've got and still be fully in the room when it counts like what are the non-negotiable moments for the people around you what does showing up actually look like in your week not as vague intention but you know as a as a real commitment with the same weight as your most important meetings in work would be because that you know the people around you they're not keep in store, you know, or sorry, they are keeping store, but not maliciously like, you know, but they're noticing.

17:48And by the time they'll tell you the debt is usually already too big. So I would say, don't wait for that conversation. Have it now because ambition without presence is simply just productivity and life's a lot more than that, in my opinion.

18:05John Lee Dumas:And let's get into the warning signs because, you know, there are going to be red flags, You know, so what are those red flags that you're chasing success at the expense of everything else? Like, what can you share with our listeners who are probably in that grind? As with most that we've talked about here, it's all sort of, you know, it's hindsight and it's all reflection for me and realizing it. So I think it's really important to listen to these things as from someone who's actually been there because you just will not see them when you're in it. um so first i think when the work becomes the only place you feel like yourself which it did to me if you can't genuinely react relax without guilt if stillness makes you anxious rather than you know restores you i guess um that's not drive that's avoidance and it's worth asking honestly like what is it you're actually avoiding secondly when the people closest to you stop telling you what's really going on you know it's it's not because things are fine or there's no longer problems it's it's it's because they've learned you're not fully available and that silence especially for me reflecting on it is one of the most important signals you'll ever receive but also one of the most difficult to identify when you're in it and then finally i think when you start measuring everything in your personal life like i did i probably still do which i'm i'm working on through the lens of an roi right you know your relationships your health your time off when you're optimizing your personal life, like, like a business unit, then something's, something's quietly going wrong because the things that make life worth living don't respond to optimization.

19:44They respond to presence, right? So if, if any of those land, don't dismiss them, sit with them, because by the time you can see them clearly, they've usually already been there a while and, and they need to be addressed.

19:56John Lee Dumas:So you've been dropping these value bombs all episode, but I want to really dial in on a lesson learned. I mean, if you could go back, what would you do differently? Like, what would you double down on? And the honest answer is, is be more present with the people who matter the most during the build. Like I was there physically, but I wasn't, I wasn't always there, there, you know, I'd protect time for the people I love. With the same ferocity, I protected the business. And, you know, that's something I didn't do that well enough. um and i'd also i'd also ask the fulfillment questions earlier um especially the beauty of all of this is you know hindsight and reflection so i really hope it does make a difference to people but not instead of building but alongside it like who am i outside of this what fills me up that has nothing to do with achievement those questions don't take anything away from from the build they just mean that when the build ends you're not starting from from zero or you know on everything else luckily for me look i'm 34 years old and i will get to do this again yeah and you know i'll put into practice a lot of the lessons i've learned reflecting back on the six years what i doubled down on is is the discipline the 5am starts a refusal the coast you know the standards i held myself to every single day regardless of what was happening around me that foundation is available to anyone willing to build it you know it's a choice made daily and more often than not it doesn't cost you anything and i probably also that double down on building without outside money you know which is something we you know haven't touched on enough but you know we bootstrapped the whole way like not a penny of outside investment like that constraint building on your own capital, your own sweat, your own conviction.

21:48Like it forges a resourcefulness and a sharpness that I would not trade for anything. And I'd use the age thing differently as well. Being young in that industry, being underestimated, I used it as fuel, but I didn't fully appreciate it at the time. But that fire is a real asset. I'd have been even more deliberate about channeling it for sure. But again, look, all very easy in hindsight, right?

22:14John Lee Dumas:It's easy in hindsight, but brother, like you said, you're going to get another swing at this, maybe two, maybe three. Who knows? I actually just talked to a 92 year old, literally. And this individual is waking up every morning on fire with passion for the business that he's running right now. Like it's crazy awesome. So Matt, give us one takeaway from everything we talked about today. And then if Fire Nation is listening right now and they're like, man, I want to connect or maybe learn more somehow from Matt, even if that's possible. Like what would your call to action for our listeners be today?

22:46The exit is not the finish line. I go as far as saying, to be honest, it's still closer to the start than the finish when we look at life as a whole journey. And I know that's not what anyone building wants, you know, anyone building anything wants to hear, but because the exit, you know, it's a story, it's the number, it's a validation that everything you sacrifice meant something to, you know, and it does mean something and and I'm not minimizing any of it, but if the exit is the only thing that you're building towards, if the business is the entire answer to who you are, then the day it's over, and it will be over when they exit, when you exit, you'll be standing on the other side of the biggest win of your life, wondering why you don't feel like you would.

23:29It's exactly like I did. So build the business, build it with everything you've got. Do not hold back, but build yourself at the same time. build your relationships, build your capacity for presence, for rest, for being a person without an agenda, build your answer to the question, you know, which is who am I when the business goes? And the version of you that comes out the other side, if you've done both is someone who can look at what they built and actually feel, you know, and actually feel it, sorry, you know, not just see the number for, you know, feel it for what it means. And that's what I'm working towards now.

24:06So honestly, it's the hardest and most important thing. I've ever had to do. It's all part of the journey, man.

24:11John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with MW and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Matt in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop up with everything, how to follow Matt on socials, any connections that he wants to give, all that jazz, all the value bombs that he dropped. So Matt, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. And for that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks, mate. Cheers.

24:43John Lee Dumas:Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Matt for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for EO Fire. So to learn more about becoming a guest, visit EOfire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there. We're on the flip side. Fire Nation, stop putting off launching your website or business. Hostinger makes it incredibly simple and affordable to get online with everything you need to succeed all in one place. Visit hostinger.com slash onfire. Use code onfire for 20 % off.

25:21John Lee Dumas:Your next chapter starts today. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. Sure. High level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform. Plus award-winning 24 seven supports. Get a 30 day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15 minute private call with me and much more at high level fire.com high level fire.com.